


Rhapsody in Blue

by jacksqueen16



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: GPF Banquet, Heterochromia Iridum, Ice Skating, M/M, Seeing in color, Soul Bond, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, UST, VictUuri, canon derivation, colorsight, figure skating, katsudonbang2017, slight AU, these two idiots, victor is lovesick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 06:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10565823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksqueen16/pseuds/jacksqueen16
Summary: “The first touch had been electric. No, even that wasn’t a good enough word. The first touch had been euphoric.” Yuuri and Victor touch for the first time at the banquet, and their grey worlds explode into color. But the next day, Yuuri has no memory of how he gained his colorsight.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story follows a fast and loose timeline. There's been lots of discussion in the fandom about when YOI is set, and where it fits in with real life skating competitions. The consensus among many seems to be that season one takes places between December 2012 and December 2014. I chose to go with an interpretation of a 2015-2016 timeline, just because that's what seemed to make sense when I was writing it. If you prefer a different timeline, then...I'm sorry? 
> 
> There are a few Russian words thrown in. I don't speak Russian, but to the best of my knowledge, here's what they mean—solnyshko: diminutive from sun; dushen'ka: my little soul. 
> 
> A million thank yous to my betas TC and utlaginn for their kind words, encouragement, and critiques. And of course, all the best wishes in the world to my amazing artist whimsy. <3

**Prologue—Saint Petersburg, Russia. Many years ago.**

Victor is five years old when he realizes that he doesn’t see the world the same way that his mother does.

“It’s different,” she tries to explain to him. “Color makes everything more vivid, more...real.” She pulls him onto her lap, and turns him toward the vase of flowers on her nightstand. “What do you see?”

“Flowers,” he says.

“Red roses,” she murmurs against his pale hair. “Dark like blood. But bright at the same time. Like fire. The most beautiful color in the world to me.”

Victor frowns. _What is red?_ He doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The vase is grey, the flowers darker. They are the same as the wood floor, the bedspread, even his mother’s long braid. He squints, looking harder. Maybe if he concentrates super hard, he’ll see what she sees.

She sighs, her sweet breath comforting. “You’ll see, one day, solnyshko. When you find your own soulmate. Someday, you’ll have colorsight, too.”

He doesn’t know what she means, but he believes her.

When Victor is 12, his coach Yakov divorces his wife Lilia.

“I don’t understand,” he asks as Yakov helps him stretch after a particularly difficult lesson. “I thought you were soulmates? Why would you divorce?” Victor has never heard of a soulmate couple separating of their own free will.

Yakov is silent for a moment, the shadows on his face growing deeper. An apology is on the tip of Victor’s tongue when the gruff coach speaks. “There’s nothing magical about it, Vitya. It’s all science, you know. They’ve proven that. The electric current in your heart rhythms, and all that. But it’s not a perfect world, is it? She was my soulmate, but…” he pauses. “She doesn’t love me. Love is something else entirely. Don’t let yourself fall for all that bullshit, those ridiculous fairy tales. You can live without colorsight, my boy. Besides, there is no color on the ice.”

Yakov never speaks of it again.

It confuses Victor, and he carries that with him for months—years—afterward. Of all his friends, only one has found their other half. It’s pure luck, too, that they happened to bump into each other at a competition. Their skin touched after a collision on the ice during warm up, and the rest was history. Everyone was happy for them, especially those who hadn’t believed in soulmates before.

“The stories are true!” they exclaimed.

“What does green look like?” others asked.

But Victor is skeptical. What were the chances that he would ever meet his soulmate? That person could live in another city, another country even. And if they did meet, what’s to say their skin would ever touch? What if their ages are vastly different, or if it really is like Yakov said all those years before?

_I won’t wait for a fairytale_ , he says to himself after he wins his first World Championship. With the roaring of the crowd in his ears, he looks down at the medal hanging around his neck. They say it’s gold, and he can only believe them. All he knows is that it is heavy with victory, and it feels good to see it glinting under the lights. This is what he has worked for, bled for, given everything for. _Skating is my life_ , he thinks. He remembers Yakov’s cryptic words and knows he was right. _There is no color on the ice._

#

**Sochi, Russia—2015**

The room is full of people.

Yuuri wants to be anywhere else. Literally. The bottom of the ocean. Or the center of a volcano. Anyplace except here, where everyone knows he is a complete and utter failure.

Celestino made him come to the banquet. Practically forced him into his suit and tie. The fabric scratches Yuuri’s skin. He itches all over, from the outside in. Or is that just everyone’s gazes boring through his clothes? He can feel the eyes of all the skaters from the Grand Prix final. Can they see his horrendous mistakes in his bones, in his very cells? He can sense pity in the air, and restrained laughter.

Yuuri wants to fall through the floor.

Celestino is talking. Saying something that is probably supposed to be comforting. Stuff that coaches are supposed to say when you lose. When you lose drastically. When your score is so low that you wonder how you ever qualified in the first place.

The champagne table is pointed out. Yuuri doesn’t really like to drink, especially not during skating season, but the small crystal glasses are shining with colorless bubbles, and fuck, his skating season is over.

_One glass won’t hurt_.

He sips his way through the first. It’s not so bad. He doesn't really like the taste, but everyone else has champagne in hand, and isn’t alcohol the great equalizer?

He’s three glasses in when he realizes that the pain is lessening. He feels lighter, freer, like his atrocious skating hadn’t happened at all. The nerves are floating away on the bubbles. He drinks another glass. And another. And then eleven more.

The conversations around him are no longer pointed, but fun and fuzzy and everything is like music to his ears. _Oh, there’s actually music_ , he realizes with a huff of laughter. “Is it hot in here?” he asks no one in particular. He gets a puzzled look from the girl nearest him, and realizes he’d spoken in Japanese. “Sorry,” he says to her in English. “Why is no one dancing? This is good music!”

She shrugs and turns back to her group of friends. Yuuri swallows the last of his champagne and sets the glass down on the table. He recognizes the song from somewhere, but he can’t place it. A top 40 hit? Something Phichit likes? It doesn’t matter. He closes his eyes and loosens his tie. He hadn’t even wanted to wear the damn thing, so “goodbye, tie,” he sings in tempo with the music.

The black, grey, and white world around him is a little blurry, but he spots people he recognizes on the other side of the room. Yuri Plisetsky, the little Russian punk whom he’d seen skulking around in his hoodie, is talking with Christophe Giacometti and… _Victor Nikiforov._

Victor. Victor’s been his idol since Yuuri can remember. His artistic inspiration, the motivation to get up early every day for practice until his back hurt and his feet were bruised and bleeding. In Yuuri’s competitive career, though, he’s never spoken to the Russian skater.

Had he dreamt it, or did Victor mistake him for a fan earlier in the day? He’s not certain.

Yuuri doesn’t remember crossing the room, but suddenly his hand is on the younger Yuri’s shoulders and he hears his own voice, higher pitched than usual. “Yuri, did you know we have the same name?”

He registers that Victor is watching him closely over the rim of his own glass.

“Get off me!” Yuri wrenches himself away, his eyebrows low, grey shadows for eyes. “What the hell do you want, Katsuki?”

“What is it you said? _I’m not sure that we can have—_ ”

_“—two Yuris in the figure skating world_ ,” Chris finishes the quote, winking slyly at Yuuri. “I don’t know about you, but from where I’m standing, the more Yuris the better.”

“Shut up, Chris. No one wants to hear that.” Yuri’s frown deepens even more, a dark slash across his young face.

“There’s only one way to settle this. A dance-off!” Yuuri announces, hands out and grabbing. He catches Yuri’s wrists.

“Let go of me!”

“I will if you dance with me!”

Chris laughs, a low rumbling chuckle. “Ooh, Yuri, what’s the matter? Worried Katsuki is a better dancer off the ice than on it?”

“Go on, Yuri, let’s see what you’ve got,” Victor joins in.

“If you like the idea so much, _you_ dance with him!” The teenager continues to protest, but Yuuri drags him closer to the center of the hotel’s grand ballroom.

Yuuri knows that Victor was talking to Plisetsky, but his heart is beating faster and faster until he thinks it might burst through his chest. _I will show you, Victor. You will see everything I can do_.

A low thumping noise fills the room, and Yuuri can hear Chris laughing from the DJ’s stand. “Thanks Chris!” he yells over the new music, letting his body begin to move. Yuri is staring at him like he’s crazy, and maybe he is, but he feels good and Victor is looking at him, really looking at him, and Yuuri loves dancing just as much as he loves skating.

The music takes over, just the way it does when he’s practicing his routines alone. The rhythm of the song is in his bloodstream. People are watching him, some of them whooping and clapping along to the beat, and he couldn’t stop now even if he wanted to.

At some point, Yuri joins him, and he’s good. He’s very good. Their dance-off escalates until Yuuri doesn’t even know what’s happening. His feet are flying, his body twisting. The room and everyone in it is hazy—the only thing that matters is the music, the feeling of Victor’s gaze following his every movement, and the fact that for the first time in a long time, Yuuri is having _fun_.

Had Victor watched him as he skated earlier in the day? Yuuri isn’t sure, but it doesn’t matter—all he knows is that the typical, overwhelming press of anxiety is lifted. Yuuri feels _alive_.

#

There are beams of light coming from somewhere, stabbing through Yuuri’s eyelids. He rolls his face deeper into his pillow, but immediately regrets the action. Everything hurts. Every part of his head is aching, throbbing, and he isn’t sure why.

Then he remembers. He’s in Sochi. The Grand Prix Final. His knees are sore from where he fell repeatedly on the ice. He curls in on himself despite the pain.

“Yuuri,” a voice that is trying—and failing—to be soft hovers on the other side of the bed. “We have to get going. Pack up your things.”

A noise like a dying animal escapes Yuuri’s vocal chords, but he manages to open his eyes into small slits. The white, bright numbers on the bedside clock proclaim it to be nine in the morning. Knowing that their flight back to Detroit is at noon, Yuuri tries to swallow down his despair. Celestino is already disappointed in him, no matter what he says. _No reason to let him see me wallowing on top of everything_.

“Yes, coach,” he mutters against the pillowcase. He thinks about moving, but the idea of movement makes his stomach queasy. _How many steps is it to the bathroom?_  

Noises begin to fill the room as Celestino packs his own bag. “Want to eat breakfast here or at the airport?” he asks.

“Not hungry,” Yuuri replies, forcing himself to sit up, fighting against the rolling of his insides. He keeps his eyes tightly closed, and it helps a little. It isn’t the first time he’s felt nauseated after a bad skate, and he knows that if he can make it to some water, he will start to feel better. _I’ll drink a glass, and take a shower, and I will not think about that triple axel, I won’t, I won’t—_

A knock on the door sends shockwaves through his brain, and he cradles his head in his hands, willing the pounding to go away. The insides of his lids are still too bright, and he clenches his hands into fists, pushing them against his eyes.

Celestino moves across the room to the door and opens it. “We didn’t order any—oh, good morning. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here.”

Another voice answers Celestino, soft and lightly accented, but Yuuri has pressed his hands against his ears. _Just get yourself to the bathroom. You can do it. Stand up, Yuuri, stand up!_

A rustling makes its way past his makeshift earplugs. “Here, Yuuri,” says Celestino, his voice muffled. Yuuri opens one eye to see that Celestino is holding out a cup of coffee from the shop in the lobby, and a small paper bag. “Try this. It might make you feel better.”

Yuuri takes the coffee cup. It is hot against his skin, even with the cardboard sleeve. He squints at the cup. Something about it looks different.

“What’s the matter?” asks Celestino. “Really, Yuuri, you can contemplate the meaning of life on the airplane.”

He glances up at his coach, and rubs at his eyes with his free hand. Celestino looks weird, too. The world is shifting, and it looks like there’s... _more_ of it.

“What…?” Yuuri looks at the coffee again. The cup isn’t black or white or grey—it has dimensions like he’s never seen. His skin stands out against the plasticized paper, pale in a way he couldn’t have differentiated before. Even the paper bag, smelling like some sort of breakfast sandwich, is somehow new and strange.

“Hey, hey,” Celestino is kneeling in front of him, waving a hand. A hand that isn’t a muted ashen shade. “Snap out of it. Did you hit your head yesterday? Yuuri, if you hit your head when you fell and didn’t tell me, I will—”

“No, no, I… Celestino, what color is this cup?”

“What do you mean what col… _Yuuri_.” Celestino grabs him by the shoulders. Yuuri looks into his face, amazed at how different his coach looks. “Yuuri, are you seeing colors?”

“It’s… all different.”

“Different how?” Celestino looks concerned.

“I don’t know, it’s… better? I can’t… I don’t know—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You promise me that you didn’t hit your head?” Celestino waits for him to nod. “When did things start looking different?”

“Right now, just now, you handed me this cup and… it’s not like it was.” Yuuri doesn’t have the words to describe what he’s seeing, and he’s not sure if it’s because of his nausea or his lack of vocabulary for colors he couldn’t imagine before.

“Who did you touch? It must have happened last night, at the banquet.”

“What must have happened?”

“You met your _soulmate_ , Yuuri. You don’t remember?”

Yuuri thinks back, tries to recall the previous night. But his head is still pounding, and all he can think is that this shouldn’t be happening. He shouldn’t have colorsight, not yet. “I didn’t, I don’t think. You… you made me go, and I didn’t want to go. But I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t want their pity.” At the thought, Yuuri’s skin tingles uncomfortably. He looks down at his arms. His sleep shirt and sweatpants look unlike anything he’s ever seen before. No, wait… the pants are the same as the cup he’s still holding. “Please… what color is this?” he asks again.

Celestino gives him a smile that looks more sad than happy as he answers.

“Blue.”

#

Overwhelming is too small a word to encompass what Yuuri feels as they travel to the airport. When he’d arrived in Sochi, it was a colorless city like any other. Now every person, every street corner, every _suitcase_ is a burst of unimaginable color.

He wishes more than anything that he had names for the colors—though he knows them in theory, of course. As a child he had memorized the names of the colors of the rainbow, and even some of the variances of tone and shade. As he stares as a woman’s wide brimmed hat, he wonders if it is red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, or violet. He knows it isn’t blue. Blue is the color of the cup he still has clutched in his hand, that he hasn’t been able to let go of.

“You’ll have to join a colorsight class, of course,” Celestino tells him after they check in and are standing in line at security. “I don’t want you skating until the colors aren’t a distraction anymore. Once you know what’s what, you’ll be able to focus again. It does take some time, but—”

“If I keep skating at all,” Yuuri mumbles under his breath, eyes riveted to a little boy’s jacket. The words on it are all in Russian, but the shade of the writing reminds him of the cup. He looks at the coffee cup, and back at the jacket. It’s not quite blue. Or is it? “Celestino, what about that color?” he speaks up.

“Navy, I think. Just a dark blue. And that one there?” Celestino points to a young man’s backpack. “I think that one’s called periwinkle in English. Pervinca in Italian.”

_Periwinkle_.

As Celestino looks for their gate number, Yuuri does his best to keep his eyes on the ground. There are more people here, past security, and the flashes of different hues are making his head hurt even more than it had before. They finally find seats to wait, and Yuuri tries to pick out the colors in the handbag of the woman across from him. He remembers rink-mates in Detroit talking about things like amethyst, teal, and salmon, and he wonders if he can find an online colorsight class.

The idea of being in a colorsight class without knowing who his soulmate is—or if he even has one at all—is not appealing.

_Did I meet my other half? Or is there something wrong with me?_ A new anxiety begins to bubble up in Yuuri’s chest. He’s never heard of anyone seeing in color without touching their soulmate first. _How can I tell people? There’s no way_. _Maybe I should go see a doctor. But then what if they find something terrible?_

“Um… Celestino?”

“Hmm.”

“Please don’t say anything to anyone about, um… the colors. I, er… want to break the news to people myself.”

Celestino turns bright eyes on his student, and Yuuri thinks they might be brown. He’s read about how brown is a warm, comforting color, and he thinks that without Celestino, he would be far worse off.

“Of course I won’t say anything. It’s big news, colorsight, and your own story to share. Don’t worry, amico.”

A shadow falls over Celestino’s face, and Yuuri looks up to see a man standing in front of them.

_Victor_.

Yuuri’s face floods with heat, and he wants to bury himself in his flu mask. _Did Victor see me make a fool of myself on the ice? No, of course not. He thinks I’m just another fan._ The memory of Victor turning to him, giving him that fake smile he reserved for the cameras, was almost too much.

“Hello again, Nikiforov,” Celestino greets the skater.

Victor nods. “Cialdini.” He turns his face toward Yuuri and smiles. “Hi, Yuuri.” His voice is softer than Yuuri can remember ever hearing it, and Yuuri’s seen every interview his idol has ever given, _ever_ . His teeth are bright white against his skin and, for the first time, Yuuri can see how beautiful his eyes are. _Blue, right? Yes, I think I know blue now. But they’re a different blue. Cooler, somehow. And his hair… what is that? Like grey, but not. He is beautiful._

“Yuuri?”

_He knows my name!_

A jab in his side from Celestino’s elbow jolts Yuuri out of his trance, and he realizes that he hadn’t answered. “Oh, um. Hello.”

Victor shifts on his feet, but not uncomfortably. He moves like he owns the very floor beneath him. “Are you going back to Japan?”

“N-no. Detroit,” Yuuri says.

“When will you go back to Hasetsu?”

_How does he know where I’m from?_

“I have school,” he blurts.

Victor’s lips stretch into a smile. His mouth is pale like his skin, but a color all its own. Yuuri wonders if he’ll be able to see this color on the posters he has of Victor. “Okay, well when are you done with school?” The look on his face is oddly affectionate, and Yuuri can’t believe this is happening.

“M-March?”

“Wonderful! Only a few months away,” Victor says with a wink. _A wink!_

“Uh… I guess?” Yuuri doesn't even know what is coming out of his mouth. All he can feel is the blush on his face growing deeper.

_Why is he talking to me?_ _Maybe Yuri Plisetsky told him he caught me crying yesterday. He must feel sorry for me. Why else would he even look at me?_

His heart sinks so far into his chest, he worries it might fall through to the floor.

The confident smile falters, a sudden crack in the pavement. “Yuuri, would you mind if we—”

“Flight 1129 to Detroit via Moscow and New York City is now boarding,” comes a voice over the loudspeaker.

Celestino stands, and pats Yuuri on the shoulder. “I’ll get in line,” he says, reaching for his carry-on bag. “See you, Nikiforov.”

Victor raises a hand. “Safe travels!”

Yuuri scrambles to stand, dropping his mobile and his backpack in the process. A swath of notebook and school papers falls out of the open pocket, and he kneels to gather them as quickly as he can. His head is lowered, his eyes glued to the mess he’d just made, and he wills Victor to just walk away. The conversation is over, isn’t it? _God, please, let it be over. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I feel sorry enough for myself_.

Victor’s hand appears in front of him, a few papers held neatly between his slender fingers. “Oops. A little tumble there.”

_Why is he kneeling on this dirty floor with me? Stop, just stop._

Yuuri snatches the papers and shoves them into his bag. “Y-you don’t have to rub it in,” he blurts before he can stop himself.

In his peripheral vision, he sees Victor lean back on his heels. “What are you talking about, Yuuri?”

“I have to go.” He gets to his feet and readjusts his flu mask.

“Yuuri, what—”

“My flight is boarding.”

“But—”

“Congratulations on your gold medal.”

He walks away, leaving the great Victor Nikiforov on his knees. He joins Celestino in line, and the coach hands him his boarding pass.

When Yuuri turns back, Victor is gone.

  
#

**Saint Petersburg, Russia**

Victor enrolls in an online colorsight class on a Monday.

He’d considered going down to the closest college, but he knows that someone would undoubtedly spot him there. It would be all over social media in no time that Victor Nikiforov, figure skating World Champion, was seeing in color. There would be endless questions about the identity of his soulmate.

He doesn’t know what on earth he could possibly tell anyone about Katsuki Yuuri. _Yes, we met and we touched and I don’t even have his phone number._

He skims through the first few pages of the class on his laptop, the ones that explain how light and color work, eager to get to the slides of the colors themselves. Lesson one consists of the basic colors of the rainbow, the ones that Victor remembers hearing his mother talk about. When he gets to red, a soft smile parts his lips.

_Red roses. Dark like blood. But bright at the same time. Like fire. The most beautiful color in the world to me._

He memorizes the bold colors easily. They are easy to pick out in the things scattered around his room, in the very clothes he’s wearing and the pictures on the wall. The sunset in the portrait over his bed is mostly orange, and Makkachin’s collar is obviously yellow. He rubs the poodle’s head and says, “But what color are you, Makka?”

Leaning back against the headboard, he moves on to lesson two. This one has more slides, and pictures with objects and people instead of basic color blocks. As he works his way through the lesson, Victor finds himself searching for a specific color, one he hasn’t seen since he looked at Yuuri in the airport.

Victor gets to lesson five before giving up. The color of Yuuri’s eyes is nowhere to be found.

During the next few weeks, he finds that keeping his colorsight a secret isn’t an easy task. He has to rein in his awe at the world around him, and not let himself get distracted during practice. He knows that Yakov can tell something is different, but the coach stays silent for once. He does his best to lose himself in the new routines he’s choreographing, but he can’t stop thinking about the young Japanese skater who danced into his life, and then walked right out of it again.

Victor had seen Yuuri a few times at a competition here and there, and once or twice on television, but had never had a reason to approach his competitor. The other man seemed withdrawn and shy the majority of the time, not interacting with any other skaters except one or two whom he probably knew from his home rink.

That had all changed at the banquet. This Yuuri was different. Drunk, that was certain, but freer. Unrestrained and happy in a way that was likely out of character. What had begun as a dance off between Yuuri and Yuri Plisetsky had escalated into a party that involved pole dancing, of all things. Trust Chris to have a few tricks up his sleeve.

Watching Yuuri dance had been infectious. Victor wasn’t much of a dancer—at least, not in public. He liked to do his dancing on the ice, and he kept it there. But Yuuri was watching him the entire night, his gaze magnetic and his smile contagious, and Victor felt a pull to join him.

The first touch had been electric.

No, even that wasn’t a good enough word. The first touch had been _euphoric_.

The colors that had exploded around him immediately paled in comparison to the colors he saw on Yuuri’s face. Yuuri’s eyes were magnificent, a blend of hues that Victor couldn’t begin to comprehend. He wanted nothing more than to look at those eyes for the rest of his life.

Yakov had been wrong, hadn’t he? Yakov had said that love didn’t come with colorsight, but Victor’s never felt this way before. _This feeling must surely grow into love_ , he thinks to himself nearly every day, as he unconsciously compares every new color to Yuuri’s eyes. 

He had tried to speak with Yuuri the following morning, bringing coffee and breakfast to his hotel room, only to be turned away by Celestino. He’d tried again at the airport, eager to get Yuuri’s phone number. It would be difficult to get to know his soulmate when he lived in a different country, of course, but it could be done. Thanks to texting, video chats, and social media, they could get closer, right? And after all, the long-distance thing wouldn’t be forever. After all, Yuuri had invited Victor to come to Hasetsu, Japan, where his parents owned and operated an onsen.

But Yuuri had seemed flustered and confused. He was withdrawn, hiding behind his flu mask, and running away before Victor could give him his contact information.

Victor tries not to let it get to him. Perhaps Yuuri was embarrassed by the way he had danced at the banquet. Maybe he didn’t want to say anything in front of so many other people. After all, airports were always full of fans armed to the teeth with cameras and cell phones.

As he imagines various scenarios, Victor waits for Yuuri to contact him on social media. But nothing ever happens. More than once, Victor realizes he’s checking Yuuri’s accounts to see if the other man has been online. Yuuri doesn’t seem to be very active on Instagram or Twitter, and Victor isn’t sure Yuuri would see a message from him. And worse, what if Yuuri _does_ see a message from Victor and chooses not to reply?  

Months pass, and eventually the thought that has been in the very back of Victor’s mind since the airport weighs heavily on him.

What if Yuuri hadn’t gotten colorsight, too?

He tries to remember exactly what had happened at the banquet. Had they ever actually spoken about the fact that the room and all the people in it were transformed by bursts of color? Or had they simply gazed at each other in surprise, and danced and danced until there was absolutely no space left between them?

Victor looks obsessively through the photos that Chris had taken for him on his phone. In each picture where they are together, he and Yuuri look incandescently happy.

He tries to remember that feeling, like there was light growing in his heart that might rupture through his chest for the whole room to see. But now there is only crushing disappointment with each day that passes. The closest he can get in attempting to replicate the feeling is on the ice as he creates a routine with Yuuri in mind, imagining what it would feel like to hold him in his arms and look into his eyes.

On a rainy day in April, a sliver of that light returns. All day at the rink, in between congratulating him on his latest gold, people have asked him if he’s seen “the video.” When he gets home that afternoon, he opens Twitter to find his account flooded with mentions. He watches the video.

It’s Yuuri.

It’s Yuuri skating—no, _dancing_ with unspeakable emotion _—_ to Victor’s routine, the one he’d just won a gold medal for two days ago. The one he’d chosen to perform because he wanted nothing more than for Yuuri to see him, to stay close to him.

It only takes him five minutes to make up his mind.

#

**Hasetsu, Japan—2016**

Yuuri’s skating season is (finally) over. College is over, too, and they told him to expect his diploma in the mail within six to eight weeks. He’s pretty sure that it will take much longer. It might even get lost in the mail, with his luck. It’s lucky that he passed his classes, honestly, what with his renewed anxiety. It’s not like he needs a college degree now, though. He’s headed home to Hasetsu, where he’s going to crash at his parent’s home, and probably help run the onsen. For the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.

He might as well be of use to someone, after all.

Minako meets him at the airport, in a flurry of excitement and pride that just makes him feel worse. He doesn’t know why anyone at home is still proud of him: not after the Grand Prix Final, and every event that followed. He’s lost his spark, he knows that much.

The walk to the onsen is familiar, but the colors make it feel like he’s never set foot in Hasetsu before. Storefronts and street signs and flowers—he’d never known how full of life and variety his hometown was. If Minako notices him lingering and observing, she doesn’t say so.

His mother’s hair is still black, and his father’s hair is still fading. But the bedspread in his old room is _peach_ and Vicchan’s fur in the photo at the shrine is _hazel_ , or maybe _coffee_. Mari’s apron is _scarlet_ and her headband is _violet_ and she’s bleached parts of her brown hair _blonde_ since he saw her last.

He doesn’t tell his family that he has colorsight, although he thinks that Mari probably guesses. She knows him better than anyone, except maybe Phichit, and it only took the Thai skater two days to catch on.

As he rests on his knees in front of Vicchan’s shrine, Phichit’s words echo in his mind.

_“Your soulmate is out there, Yuuri. You must have met them! Were you drinking? You know what happens when you drink too much.”_

Yuuri shakes his head, willing the memory away. He isn’t sure which is worse. To be a freak of nature, gaining colorsight for no reason? Or to have found an uninterested soulmate, who hasn’t tried to contact him since the banquet?

He doesn’t like either of those options.

The next few days—or are they weeks? Minutes? Years?—blur together in a haze of reunions and work and holding back tears. Yuuri sees Vicchan around every corner, it seems, before remembering that his beloved pet is no longer with them. He used to bury himself in skating, but now he buries himself in helping his parents and his sister. There aren’t as many guests at the onsen as there once were, but he is determined to make himself an asset instead of another burden.

_This I can do_ , he thinks as he folds bright white towels. _There’s no one to judge me here_ , he tells himself while stirring a black pot on his mother’s stove. _Maybe this is where I’m supposed to be_ , he nods at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Brown eyes with bits of blue stare back at him, unconvinced, and he ducks his head away to wash his face. _This is all I have left_.  

#

Victor’s not sure what time it is, or even what day it is, and he doesn’t care. Every molecule of his being is focused on one thing: finding Yuuri.

He’d gotten to the onsen easily enough, despite the jetlag and the snow. Yu-topia is apparently one of the best known places in town, and even though he doesn’t speak a word of Japanese, more than one person was happy to point him in the right direction when he said the name “Katsuki Yuuri.”

Yuuri isn’t there when he arrives, and that’s okay, he tells himself. He lets Yuuri’s parents show him around. He takes in the colors of the house, the colors that Yuuri still might not know exist. He lets Makka off her leash, and she runs around sniffing every corner, bent on an unseen goose chase. The Katsukis look at her with fondness in their eyes, and Victor wonders if it has anything to do with the framed photos of the poodle scattered around the house.

After several attempts at communication, aided greatly by someone he thinks must be Yuuri’s sister, he’s taken to the hot springs. There aren’t any other guests around. The water is warm, inviting, a clear and comforting blue. Victor strips down to his bare skin, and makes himself at home, letting the heat of the onsen melt away his worries.

“You’ll see him soon,” he whispers to himself in Russian, observing his own pale skin through the water, a stark contrast to the grey stones that surround the pool.

He lets his mind wander over the various scenarios he’d imagined on the flight. He had rehearsed what he would say, of course. After years as a professional skater in the limelight, he’d learned the valuable lesson of being prepared.

He washes his face in the pool, and wipes it clean with one of the towels that are nearby. He goes over his speech in his head again as he wets the cloth and places it on his head, letting the water soak through his hair and down to his scalp. He wonders how often Yuuri has bathed here, how often—

Steps, quick steps, echo. They get faster and faster until someone races into view, stopping suddenly when they see him. Victor does his best not to let his jaw drop open at the sight of Katsuki Yuuri.

He stands there, looking shocked and a little upset. Those stunning eyes are wide open. “Why are you here?” Yuuri blurts in English and something tightens in Victor’s chest.

_Am I not welcome?_

He whips the cloth from his head, and defaults to what he knows best. He stands, ignoring the cold spots of snow against his recently exposed skin. A flashy smile, a cock of his hips. “Yuuri!” he exclaims, sounding far happier than he feels. “Starting today, I’m your coach.” The words are out before he can think about them, before he can realize their implications. “I’ll make you win the Grand Prix Final.”

#

Yuuri doesn’t expect it. Maybe that’s what makes it all so crazy.

Victor wants to be his coach. To train _him._  Katsuki Yuuri, the failure of the Grand Prix.

Yuuri isn’t sure how he feels. Victor is staying with his family at the onsen, and he’s _there_ all the time. Living, eating, laughing, existing. Filling every room with more color than the day before.

Yuuri tries his best not to stare. But it’s hard when he knows, now, exactly what color to call Victor’s hair and eyes and skin and lips and, _wow, are the blades of his skates gold?_

It’s insane and terrifying and wonderful.

Yuuri holds Victor’s skates in his hands. He’s supposed to be helping Victor unpack, but these are the skates that have carried his idol to victory so many times. He can hardly believe that he’s touching them. He’s seen the skates, of course, when Victor practices at the rink. But how did he not notice their extravagant color when Victor demonstrated the Eros routines for him and Yurio?

Oh right. He was too busy watching Victor’s body move to the music.

“Do you like them?” Victor asks him in English, from where he’s practically knee deep in clothes. He’s brought his entire wardrobe to Japan, it seems.

“Oh, uh… yes?” Yuuri is blushing, he knows he is. He does every time Victor so much as breathes. He remembers that embarrassing moment when Victor mistook him a fan, and even worse, their strange encounter at the airport when he dropped all his belongings and looked like a bumbling fool.

Victor hasn’t brought up the airport, or Sochi, at all. He says all he cares about is getting Yuuri back in shape.

His stomach grumbles at the very thought of the food he’s no longer allowed to eat, and Victor chuckles.

“Hungry? Let’s go see what snacks we can find in your mother’s kitchen, hmm? But yours has to be healthful, okay, Piglet?” Victor leaps out from behind his barricade of soft cotton shirts, designer jeans, and skating costumes. “We won’t let you be a little piggy anymore.”

Yuuri ducks his head and nods. He has a name for the color of embarrassment now. Crimson. He knows his muscles aren’t like they used to be when he practiced every day in Detroit, but he’s been working out and dieting and he knows he looks better than he did before the Hot Springs on Ice skate against Yurio, he’s sure of it—

“Hey, hey.” A smooth finger touches Yuuri’s chin, and he’s forced to look up into Victor’s eyes. “You will get your katsudon soon, dushen'ka. You’ve already proven to me that you have the drive and the willingness. Now we just need to tap into the passion that you say you feel. Okay?” His hand slides down Yuuri’s neck to clasp his shoulder in reassurance.

Yuuri swallows. “Okay.”

And that’s another thing.

The touching.

It happens all the time.

Yuuri isn’t sure if all Russians are so touchy-feely, or if it’s just Victor.

He isn’t sure about a lot of things right now.

If his soulmate exists, what would they think about the way he looks at Victor? About the way he relishes his coach’s touch and praise and every single glance? The way his heart speeds up, how his every thought is about Victor—being with Victor, skating with Victor, walking and talking with Victor, even as his chest feels like it might explode?

What if...what if this is love?

He’s utterly and completely unsure, but guilt settles in his stomach all the same, souring his appetite for the rest of the day.

#

Yuuri leans back against the lockers, feeling the cold metal press against the nape of his neck. He knows that he should remove his skates and go home to soak in the onsen, but everything hurts and the thought of moving his feet is unappealing.

Victor wants Yuuri to create his own free skate, but until he gets the newly revised music back from the girl in Detroit, Yuuri can’t choreograph. So instead, Victor is drilling him on literally everything else. Yuuri is used to bruising, but today he is fairly certain that his feet bled. But Victor wants him to do more, to get better, to push himself as far as he can—and Yuuri isn’t about to disappoint him.

The sound of feet echo in the hallway, and the door swings open. “Yuuri?” Victor’s voice is chipper, like it always is after practice. “What are you still doing in your skates?”

Yuuri glances up. Victor’s skates are already slung over his shoulder, and he has tennis shoes on his feet. “Oh, um… ” He blushes, ducking his head. _Victor can’t know how much it hurts. He’ll think I’m weak, won’t he?_ Panic starts to bubble up in his chest at the feeling of Victor’s inquisitive gaze drifting over his body, and he leans down to fiddle with his laces. “I got sidetracked. You go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”

There’s a pause, and then Victor is kneeling in front of him, the golden skates sliding off his shoulder and down to the floor. “Let me,” he says, and Yuuri freezes.

Victor’s long pale fingers make quick work of the black laces, and with careful tugging, he works the skate off of Yuuri’s left foot first. The second boot follows, and Yuuri is left in his grey socks. He can see dark spots scattered across the toes, where sweat and blood have gathered, and he winces, not wanting Victor to know, to see, to feel pity.

He wants to pull away, but his legs won’t move. Instead, he stares at Victor’s silver hair, the opaline wisps of his eyelashes, the rosy curve of his mouth. Anywhere but at his dirty socks, where Victor is gently peeling away his last illusion.

The cold air hits his bare skin, and Victor inhales sharply at the sight of Yuuri’s feet. Yuuri snaps his eyes closed, his heart beating faster and faster. Victor is cradling his foot, his hand warm and comforting. It’s too intimate.

“Victor, please,” Yuuri pleads. He hopes Victor understands.

Victor pulls away after a moment, not saying a word. His phantom heat lingers on Yuuri’s skin for hours afterward.

#

For days, Yuuri is cautious around Victor. Victor wants to be with him all the time, but Yuuri can’t let that happen. Not after Victor was so reverent, so _loving_ with him in the locker room. Yuuri’s face heats every time he thinks about Victor’s fingers curled around his tender ankle, about Victor seeing his vulnerability. All skaters suffer the way he did that day, and Victor has probably spent plenty of days bruised and bloody—but this is different. This is naked, honest, and Yuuri saw it all in color.

Victor finally convinces him to go the beach. Yuuri agrees, thinking that the fresh air might cool the constant blush in his cheeks. _But can the sea breeze blow away my feelings for Victor?_

The mood is quiet, contemplative. Seagulls screech overhead, looking for careless scraps left behind by beachgoers. Victor breaks the silence, saying something about Saint Petersburg, how he never thought he’d live anywhere else, despite his worldwide career.

Yuuri watches him, observes those icy blue eyes that are always bright and happy—except now, they’re soulful, full of memories. Yuuri wonders what they had looked like when Victor had gazed down at his aching, bleeding feet.

Yuuri talks too, the confession about the girl in Detroit spilling from his lips. He’s not sure why he tells Victor that his family never sees him as weak, but he can’t stop the words from coming.

“You are anything but weak, Yuuri,” Victor replies with a small laugh. “A weak skater gives up when they are tired, when their feet are bruised and broken. You keep going, no matter what.” He looks at Yuuri, a smile on his lips.

Yuuri thinks of the Grand Prix Final, how he’d wanted to give up skating afterwards. Only Celestino and Phichit had kept him going then, not himself. His emotions must be plain on his face, because Victor is already shaking his head in protest. “Don’t do that to yourself, Yuuri,” he chastises. “That was in the past. This is now. What you do now, in this moment, is what matters.”

Yuuri smiles, that feeling of affection blooming in his chest again. “Now you sound like Phichit.”

Victor grins back. “Phichit must be a very smart man.”

The tension is lessened somewhat, and Yuuri can breathe a little easier. But Victor’s smile fades, and he looks back at the shoreline. “What you do now is what matters,” he says again, more softly, almost like he’s talking to himself.

“When it gets warmer we can go swimming,” Yuuri says. “I mean… I don’t know if you like to swim, but…”

“I love the water.” Victor nods. “And I would love to swim here. This ocean, it’s beautiful and wild. It reminds me of your eyes.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to say something inane, something about the crowds that come in the summertime, when it hits him.

“My...what? _What?_ ”

The lightest brush of red sweeps over Victor’s cheeks, so faint that Yuuri almost doesn’t catch it. “Your eyes. They’re not just brown. Traces of blue and green… it’s something I don’t even know how to describe. Surely someone has told you this before. They’re beautiful.”

He’s turned toward Yuuri, that same look on his face that he’d had when he’d knelt before him in the locker room. It’s admiring, almost like Victor can’t believe what he’s looking at, and Yuuri’s face flares red. Victor has colorsight. That means that Victor has a soulmate, too, probably someone back home, someone he’s kept away from the paparazzi.

Victor has touched him, flirted with him, and all the while he’s already taken. Victor’s just as horrible as he is.

“Yuuri. _Yuuri_ ,” Victor shakes his arm, pats his back, and Yuuri realizes that he’s breathing heavily, on his way toward hyperventilating. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. Please, breathe.”

Yuuri calms his breath, using the techniques his therapist in Detroit had recommended. _In, out. In, out. One. Two. Three. Four. Victor._

_Victor. Victor. Victor._

“No, it’s fine,” he says when he’s calmed down as much as he can. Victor is still touching his back, a warm and solid presence. “It just took me by surprise.” The excuse sounds lame, but he can’t take the words back.

Victor frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I… I just mean that. I mean, it’s nothing. It’s fine. It makes sense not to tell anyone about your colorsight. People would probably ask you all sort of questions, right?”

“But why would that surprise you?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yuuri, you… you don’t know?”

Yuuri’s heart is hammering in his chest. “Know what?”

Victor swallows thickly, his eyes large and questioning. “Yuuri, do you remember the banquet at the Grand Prix Final?”

“Um, not really. I, uh… I had a lot of anxiety that night, so a lot of it isn’t… I don’t know, I don’t like to think about it,” Yuuri confesses.  

“Yuuri, I think about that night every single moment. Don’t you know why?”

More confused than before, Yuuri shakes his head.

“Yuuri, I can see in color because of that night.”

Yuuri immediately wracks his memory of the Grand Prix, trying to think of which other skaters were there. Had Victor met his soulmate that night?

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks, unsure of what else to say.

“Yuuri, I need to ask you something.”

He blinks at the abrupt shift. “Uh...”

“Do you know what color my eyes are? And I don’t mean because you read it somewhere in some skating article. Can you see what color they are right now?”

Yuuri stares at the color he’s grown to love, the color that reminds him of the ice, of the waters of the onsen at twilight. He thinks of how he’s kept the secret so close to his chest, how the thought of people knowing he had colorsight had kept him awake at night, nervous that something was wrong with him. But his lips have already parted, and it’s on his tongue before he can stop himself. “Blue. They’re...they’re a silver-y blue, like the baby blue eye flowers in Hitachinaka.”

A grin breaks across Victor’s lips, crashing like the waves on the beach, changing everything about his face. “I...I knew. I knew it had to be.”

“Victor, what...please—”

Victor brings his hand up to touch Yuuri’s cheek. “Yuuri, I have colorsight because of _you_.”

Everything around them stops, and all Yuuri can see is Victor’s face. “That’s impossible… I woke up with colorsight the morning after the banquet, Victor. We never touched until you came to Hasetsu—we didn’t even meet—” he tries to protest, but the words die on his tongue.

“I came to Hasetsu because I wanted to be with you,” Victor says. Yuuri can feel his sweet breath against his face. “I came to Hasetsu because we were together that night, Yuuri. We danced together and we touched and the first thing—the first color—I saw was your beautiful face.”

“You… you mean… we’re… but we can’t be. You never said anything, you never… we never—but I don’t remember it...” The more he objects, the more a feeling like hope wraps itself around his heart. He realizes he’s grasping Victor’s hand with trembling fingers.

“You don’t remember it, but Yuuri...I know that you feel it.” Victor touches his cheek with gentle fingers. “You are my soulmate.”

The azure waves crash over the sand, drowning out the rest of the world, bathing the beach in dazzling color.

#

**Epilogue: Barcelona, Spain**

The soulful, yet somehow euphoric, strains of “Yuri on Ice” fill the air, fill Victor’s ears, until he doesn’t hear the roar of the crowd or even the echo of his own pulse in his veins. All there is in the world is Yuuri dancing on the ice. A blur of blue and black, whisps of embroidered flowers, bright against the whiteness of the rink.

His breath catches at the same places it always does during Yuuri’s free-skate—his heart skips and soars when Yuuri changes his jumps—his fist clenches with tension at the thought of this being Yuuri’s last time on the ice—until he feels the cold band around his ring finger, and remembers.

He remembers his world restarting—resetting itself—in glorious color the moment his skin brushed against Yuuri’s almost exactly a year ago. He remembers his whirlwind journey to Japan, the Hot Springs on Ice competition where he’d fully realized Yuuri’s potential and thought that it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t soulmates—as long as he could be near Yuuri, it would be all right. He remembers that day on the beach, when everything came full circle.

He remembers their first kiss, how they’d started pushing their beds together, how their legs tangle together in the sheets every night.

Victor grins as the music halts and Yuuri reaches toward him, hand outstretched.

He doesn’t need to look at the matching ring to know it’s gold.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This was a great Big Bang to be part of, and I'm so glad that I was able to participate. 
> 
> If you're curious, I will be posting some filler fics for Rhapsody in Blue later on, so hit that "subscribe" button if you want to see more of our colorsight boys.


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